Laura Jo Phillips (13 page)

“What happens next?” she asked. 

“When the transformation is complete, you will awaken,” Merrick said.  “Shortly afterward, you will go into what we call a mating fever.  We will need to perform the Soul-Link Triad, and we’ll need to do it quickly.  If we wait too long, the mating fever could take your life.”

“Soul-Link Triad?” Berta asked.  She’d never heard that term before.

“The three of us must all enter you at the same time,” Merrick said.  “Then we will inject you for the third and final time.  That is when the miracle occurs, when the three parts of the soul we share become linked together with your soul, as they are meant to be.”

A wave of unreasoning fear crashed over Berta, blocking out everything he’d said after the first sentence. 
This
was why she’d hesitated to let Jareth make her young again, what she had feared more than anything else.  Sex.  It had been many years, decades, since she’d been forced to endure the humiliation, pain, horror and degradation of the sex act.  She had hoped to never experience it again.

She knew, at least on an intellectual level, that for some women sex was neither humiliating nor painful.  From what she could tell, Hope, Saige, Lariah, all of the other women she’d met here on Jasan, actually enjoyed the act and, unless she was greatly mistaken, they found pleasure in it.  The same could not be said of herself, nor of any of the other women she’d met during her years as a captive of the Brethren. 

She’d thought, for many years, that all women suffered as she did.  Recently, she’d begun to suspect that the suffering was due to the Brethren themselves, and would not occur with normal men.  Or Jasani.  That was one reason why she’d allowed Jareth to make her young again. 

She looked into Merrick’s violet eyes and saw the compassion and concern for her in them.  She looked at Tor, and saw the same expression there.  She knew that Jerri’s eyes would tell the same story, and that they would never humiliate her.  That was what mattered most.  Not the pain.  Pain would be a small price to pay for love. 

As quickly as her thoughts ran through her mind, Tor and Merrick still noticed her hesitation, and her fear.  “What is it, Berta?” Merrick asked. 

At that moment Jerri rushed into the room, slamming the door behind himself and dropping a suitcase onto the floor.  “How is she?” he demanded as he joined Tor beside the bed.  “Is she all right?  Is it working?”

“I’m fine, Jerri,” Berta said, smiling up at his golden eyes.  Her voice was soft, but she no longer had trouble making it work.  She even raised her hand enough to touch Jerri’s hand.  “Is everything well at Arima House?”

“Yes, all is fine,” Jerri said, raising her hand to his mouth and kissing it warmly.  “Arima Hope said you’d be worried, and to tell you she has it covered.”

Berta smiled her thanks, then looked back to Merrick.

“Please, feel free to ask us anything at all,” Merrick said.

“Will it hurt very much?” she asked hesitantly.

“Hurt?” Merrick asked with a frown.  He shook his head.  “No,
valedar
, it will not hurt.  We would never cause you pain if we can help it.  That is why the second stage of the transformation process will be so difficult for us.  We will know you are in pain because of us.”

Berta was relieved.  She still thought there might be some pain.  It was impossible to imagine otherwise.  But they wouldn’t
deliberately
hurt her, and they wouldn’t enjoy her pain. 

“I have something to tell you,” she said.  “You may wish to reconsider completing this process, and if you do, I will understand.  I meant to tell you this today but I didn’t get a chance.”

“There is nothing that could ever make us reconsider this,” Tor said.

Berta raised her hand to pat him gently.  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see their faces when she told them. 

“I cannot have children,” she said in a whisper.  “I’m sorry.”

She felt a gentle finger beneath her chin, pressing upward, requesting that she look up.  She gathered her courage and opened her eyes to see all three of the Falcorans looking down at her. 

“To have children with you, Berta, would be a blessing,” Merrick said.  “But it is by no means the reason we desire you, or need you in our lives.”

Berta searched his face carefully, then Tor’s, then Jerri’s, but she saw nothing more than sincerity and worry in their eyes and on their faces.  Finally she nodded.

“Now that we are clear on that, tell us, why do you say you cannot have children?” Merrick asked.  “And before you answer, let me be clear that I ask only because it may very well be that the transformation process will correct the problem, depending on what it is.”

“I don’t want to tell you,” Berta said, her throat so tight she had to struggle to speak.  Only this time it wasn’t because of the drug she’d been given.

“Why not?” Jerri asked, an expression of hurt in his eyes that made it hard to swallow.

“Because I don’t want you to think less of me,” she whispered. 

“Please, trust us,” Jerri said. 

“You know why the Brethren kidnap
berezi
,” she said.  “I don’t want to remember details, let alone speak of them.  I bore one child, but Brethren have little humanity in them.  No woman ever bore more than one child to the Brethren, and few of them lived through the experience.  I did live through it, barely, though I often regretted it.”

“What happened to your child?” Jerri asked.

Berta grimaced.  “He became a credit to his father and, the last I heard, he was next in line as the leader of the Brethren.”

“You do not sound as though you were close to your son,” Tor said carefully.

“How could I be?” Berta asked.  “He became one of my jailers.  When he was a baby, he was left with me in the old compound.  He looked like what he was, a Brethren.  Reptilian.  But he was my child, and I loved him.  When he was twelve, they took him from me, and left me there alone.  I saw him a few times over the years, but it didn’t take long for him to become completely Brethren.”

“Berta, will you tell us, please, why you were left alone so long?” Merrick asked.  It was a question that had burned in his mind since he’d first leaned of her past.  “Why didn’t they keep you with the other women?”

“I have a small talent for disrupting electronics,” Berta said with a tiny smile.  “Nothing big, but enough to be very annoying if I want to be.  When they began using the Controllers on women, they were worried that I might disable them, so they decided I needed to be kept away from the others just in case.  When they built the new compound, they decided it was safest, and easiest, to leave me behind.  They couldn’t kill me because at the time I was pregnant.  Later, after they took my child, I expected them to kill me, but they didn’t.  Maybe it was for my son’s sake.  I don’t really know.  When they started bringing women to the old compound to hold until they could determine if they were
berezi
or not, I think it was convenient to have me there to let the women know what was happening.  In between kidnappings, I think they just kind of forgot about me.”

“It must have been a very lonely life for you,” Jerri said, stroking the back of her hand gently.

“Yes, it was,” Berta agreed.

“Wait,” Tor said with a frown.  “Are you saying that the Brethren started using the Controllers forty years ago?”

“Yes, that’s about right,” Berta replied.  “Give or take a couple of years.  Is that important?”

“We just thought they were more recent inventions,” Merrick said after shooting Tor a warning look.  “From what you’ve said, I think it’s possible that once the transformation is complete, you will be able to have children again if you wish.”

“Really?” Berta asked with wide-eyed wonder.  “I would love that more than I can tell you.”

“There’s more,” Jerri said.  “Your body will be entirely remade, Berta.  Whatever was done to the body you now have will be completely erased.”

Berta’s eyes widened at this new and amazing thought.  A brand new body.  Not just a younger one, but one that would not carry a scar or mark or any other reminder of the past.  One that had never been touched by a Brethren.

“Thank you, Jerri,” she said.  She was so relieved, and so happy by what Jerri had told her that she missed the looks that the Falcorans exchanged above her. 

“May I ask you a question?” she said.

“You may ask us anything you like,” Tor replied. 

“On Earth, we have birds that look much like your alter-forms that we call falcons.  Even the name is similar.  But falcons are birds.  They have feathers, not fur, and they lay eggs rather than bear live young like mammals do.”

“Are they reptiles?” Merrick asked with a frown.

“No, birds are not reptiles,” Berta replied.  “I think that somewhere in their evolution they were reptilian, but to be honest I don’t remember much of my childhood schooling.”

“What is your question?” Tor asked.

“Well, you guys have fur, not feathers, but as I said, you look like falcons and you fly.  So are you mammals or something else?”

“We are mammals,” Merrick said.  “All Clan Jasani are mammals.”

“That’s a relief,” Berta said.  “I have another question.  After this, will I still be able to run Arima House?”

“Of course,” Merrick replied with a smile.  “In fact, we have already spoken with the Lobos and the Dracons about this.  The Lobos have asked us to take over ranch security as they are stretched a bit thin right now.  And the Dracons have offered to expand your current quarters in Arima House so that we can all live there.  If it’s acceptable to you, of course.”

“That’s wonderful to me,” Berta replied with a yawn.  She raised one hand to cover her mouth, pleased to find that she had little trouble doing it.  She still felt weak, and tired, but she could move.  She yawned again.

“It is beginning,” Merrick said.  “You will fall asleep in a moment.  If you dream, please know that we are here, and will not leave you.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at each of them.  “I want you to know that I am no longer afraid.”

“No longer afraid of being abducted?” Merrick asked.

“No longer afraid of being abducted.  No longer afraid of leaving the ranch.  The ranch didn’t save me, you guys did.  And after this, you will be with me for all time.  Right?” 

“That’s right,” Merrick replied.  “You have our word on that.” 

Berta smiled, then yawned again.  She started to raise her hand, but it fell back with a thump.  She was sound asleep.

Merrick, Tor and Jerri watched her for a few moments, then moved back away from the bed.  “It makes me crazy to think of what she went through,” Jerri said. 

“Then do not think of it,” Merrick said.  “She needs us to be here for her now.  Going off in a blood-rage will do no good.”

“I know,” Jerri replied.  “That’s the only reason I haven’t lost control already.”

“What do we do next?” Tor asked.

Merrick thought for a moment.  He glanced at the suitcase that Jerri had left on the floor near the door, then over to where Berta lay sleeping on the bed.  They’d covered her with a light blanket, but her hair was tangled with bits of grass and leaves, and he knew that her clothing was stained and dusty as well.

“I want to clean her up and put a fresh gown on her,” he said.  “Do you think she’ll mind?”

“We promised to allow no one else in here, other than Prince Garen, and him only if necessary,” Tor reminded him.  “If we do not do it, then she must remain as she is.”

“She is our Arima,” Jerri said.  “It is our duty and our right to tend to her.  If she becomes angry with us for doing so, then we shall have to accept that.  It does not relieve us of our duty to her.”

“Sometimes you are very wise, my brother,” Merrick said with a bow.  “Let’s see what Arima Hope sent.”

Jerri picked up the suitcase, set it on the dresser and opened it.  Inside they found several articles of clothing, including a satin nightgown with thin straps in a dark blue that exactly matched Berta’s eyes.  There were no ruffles, lace or frills on the gown.  It needed none, for the fabric it was made of was beautiful enough without fanciful decoration.  Somehow, it reminded them of Berta herself.

Merrick picked up the gown and laid it aside while Tor reached for the brush and comb in a side pocket.  Jerri took the toiletries bag into the bathroom, and Merrick looked through the suitcase for anything else they might need.

Jerri came out of the bathroom with several warm, damp cloths and a towel and the three of them gathered around Berta once more.  Merrick pulled the blanket back, and they began undressing her in silence. 

At first, as Merrick began to unbutton Berta’s blouse, revealing one glorious inch of creamy skin with each button, he wondered if his body would explode before the task was finished.  He’d never been so intensely aroused.  Had not even known that such feelings were possible.  Then he reached the fourth button, between her breasts, and saw something that made the breath catch in his throat.  He said nothing, but slipped the next button through its hole, his fingers suddenly shaking, afraid of what might be revealed next. 

His fear was justified.  A gasp from Tor and a growl from Jerri told him they were finding what he had found.  He turned his head, though he didn’t really want to, and saw her skirt had been unfastened and slipped down her legs, revealing white ridges of scar tissue in long thin stripes extending from her breasts to her hips.  .